This past weekend I was a racing at Mid-Ohio and had 2 different tires issues. The first set were brand new LeCont White SVC Prime mounted last week, purchased them less then a year ago they were stored indoors. In the picture below you can see the sidewalls exploded and went flat after 2 laps. The pressures I was running was 12 in the front 13 in the rear, it was early in the morning it was only the right rear.
I didn’t have a back up so I purchased new set of MG SH2 tires. Next race, I completed it however the front tires felt low in pressure so after the race I checked and they were down 3-4 PSI, so I replaced all the beadlocks with Pro Dr1ver Beadlock, day 1 was over. Day 2 I checked the pressures and all 4 tires held air no change. Next I checked my tire gauge against others near me and my tire gauge seemed to be close to everyone else’s, First two practice sessions I just took 1 -2 laps nothing unusual. Tire pressures were set at 12 in the front 13 in the rear mild summer day. 1st race everything felt fine until after lap 6 something felt strange in the front, one corner later I could see something was wrong with the front right tire, tire instantly exploded and pulled off. I checked the other tires and there wasn’t a spike in pressure. I spent a lot of money on new things that broke, I can’t imagine that it could be anything but the tires themselves, but as I prepare for the next race next month, is there anything else that I should be looking at? The rims were OTK Mags, no bends or issues, they are excellent condition. I think the first issues could have been bad beadlocks?, but I am stumped why the MG’s exploded. I was thinking of contacting the manufacturer.
Gotta be something with the track. My guess would be rumble strips. It’s something consistent from session to session and tire to tire. The failure of the MG looks not to different to F1 failures that are usually attributed to a sharp kerb or rumble strips.
I really beat myself up about it, I mounted the first set, however the second set were mounted by someone else. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred during the mounting. I didn’t hit a single kerb or make contact with anyone. As far as driving I was not pushing hard and after the first blow up, I started keeping my distance and drafting less. The fact that no one else had this problem and conditions were cool, hard to believe that it’s not the tires. I think I am going to try and find some scales to scale my kart, but the fact it was the front and the rear which I think work pretty separately it’s shocking.
It’s not something like a loose tie-rod causing crazy toe angles and premature wear is it?
Tires Plus left one of my tie-rods loose on my Volvo 850 once, and I burned the front tires off in about 1,000 miles when I realized I had insane amounts of toe-out.
I don’t think so because the rear tire looks just like the others, but the sidewall corded, then the front tire it’s hard to tell but no weird tire wear on any of the others.
The front is a sidewall failure from running the tire almost flat the day before. The rear looks like the start of a side wall failure as well, sure there wasn’t a leak on that wheel? How soon before the session was the psi set/checked?
seen it many times on cars and that’s the reason IMSA mandates min tire psi now.
Have you baselined your air pressure gauge against someone else’s? Could be that you are setting the pressures right by your gauge but there’s a zero shift.
I run without beadlocks when possible. I have NEVER seen or experienced a tire deflating suddenly from being pulled off the bead. At the compounds US karting runs, I doubt it’s even possible – the kart will slide first. Or the tire will be so low on air that it will be obvious before the bead unseats…
It used to be a necessity on older generations of tires where the sidewall was softer. I definitely have seen tires de-bead in normal race conditions before back then. Less common now, but I have still seen it happen when we run low pressures. Keep in mind that occasionally these new MGs like to be down in the 8 psi range… Pretty risky to not have beadlocks at that pressure.
Though a more likely scenario would be, they save you if you have contact or drop a wheel or go up and over a kart and land on the tire sidewall. Thats generally when I’ve seen de-beads lately.
